Talk:German exodus from Eastern Europe

Cautious, I moved the project from your talk page to your main User page. The purpose is to enable people to comment the article here instead of your talk page. I hope you don't mind.Halibutt 14:48, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)

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Moved from my talk page:

Dawn_of_German_East

I am preparing the new article, dealing with the whole process User_talk:Cautious/Dawn_of_German_East, while Expulsion of Germans after World War II should remain the description of one of the phases of the process.

Please contribute your comments. Cautious 07:50, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Not at this time, sorry. I'll just comment that the title is —in my opinion of course— ridiculous, as 'dawn of' implies something new, while the 'German East' you appear to want to discuss is centuries old at least. Consider how this looks to others: would you like an article title "Invention of the Polish nation-state" to discuss the Polish Soviet satellite state? Something like "Former eastern Germany" or "Eastern German lands after WW2" would be a better, more NPOV title. — Jor (Talk) 10:36, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I must completely agree with Jor. This is goofy at best and a clear violation of Wikipedia:Neutral point of view from the outset.

--Wighson 02:16, 2004 Apr 11 (UTC)

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How about: "The Dusk of German East"?Space Cadet 17:42, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)

<sings>Ain't no sunshine when she's gone</sings>. But seriously, The present title seems rather informal and Jor's proposals seem a little bit better. I'd vote for something like "Lands East of the Oder-Neisse line after 1945", but it might be a bit too long. So perhaps Jor's "Eastern German lands after WW2" could be modified to "Former Eastern German lands after WW2"?Halibutt 18:56, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I am going to describe not only Poland, but also the general process that happenned everywhere in Eastern Europe.

My source of information is here: Sources for the Fall of German populations in the East (http://www.nachkriegsdeutschland.de/demographische_verschiebungen.htm)

Currently I consider the name: Fall of German populations in Eastern Europe

Cautious 00:13, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I was about to propose something along the line of

• westward migration of the Germans or
• German exodus from Central Europe

– but in all honesty, I don't know if that would be particularly good as article titles either. :-)

--Ruhrjung 00:21, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)

How about Fall of German populations in Central and Eastern Europe or simply Fall of German populations in Central Europe, since most of Eastern European Germans simply fled or were evacuated or deported by Stalin long before 1945 (Volga Germans, Ukraine, and so on). Halibutt 10:08, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)

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Resources: Niemcy na Pomorzu Gdanskim (http://www.dfk-danzig.com/Niemcy_na_Pomorzu_Gdansku_po_1945_roku!!.html)

Germans in Slovenia (http://www.uvi.si/eng/slovenia/background-information/germans)

Victims

While I'm not out to nitpik this article, "Not only people who had been citizens of Nazi Germany (Reichsdeutsche) but also ethnic Germans (Volksdeutsche) were successfully evacuated (around 5 milion people) before the rest were overrun by the Red Army." is pretty sanitized, isn't it? Do you intend to ignore the millions who were butchered, frozen and starved? Bwood 00:03, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The problem is that the exact number of victims of organised persecution (as opposed to victims of war itself) remains unknown. The estimates vary from 10.000 to over 3 millions (remember Nico?), I see no way of presenting the facts without starting an endless revert war. Of course you are right that the maltreatment of German nationals should be mentioned, but I suppose it would be better if we agreed on the wording on the talk page first. What do you say? [[User:Halibutt|Halibutt]] 03:48, Oct 1, 2004 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. Stating the range of estimates is best. I know you want to blame everything on the Soviets, but that's not very plausible. Even if the Poles of 1945 had some moral elevation than every other people on this earth, given the numbers of survivors who had endured unspeakable conditions and lost uncomprehensible numbers of loved ones, to pretend there were not sizable amounts of retributions against the German civilians is pure fantasy. Bwood 04:27, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Please refer to what I say, not to what you think I might say in the future. I don't want to blame anything on anyone, please beware of such statements. As to the problem itself: I think we could handle it in a similar way to the Massacres of Poles in Volhynia article: list all the historians and the numbers proposed. A table would surely do. Which wording do you propose? [[User:Halibutt|Halibutt]] 04:57, Oct 1, 2004 (UTC)